Wednesday, 18 April 2012

I'm not going to lie, this isn't traditional fish and chips by any means, not the English version of it anyway. The fish is coated in Masa, which in case you don't know is a dough made from corn flour. Call it a gluten free experiment, but it's definitely one that worked!

I know it might sound odd that I used a dough instead of a batter but you get the same end result, it's a crispy batter, but a very smooth one which is what makes this non traditional. It tastes amazing but it doesn't necessarily look right, not in terms of classic fish and chips anyway.

Visually, the fish reminds me of the frozen varieties you can buy in boxes to put in the oven, rest assured though, this tastes super fresh and ever so naughty, it's a filling feast!

Mix the masa harina with the water and form a firm but soft dough, add more masa harina if too sticky, more water if too hard

Cover a chopping board with cling film

Take pieces of the dough and press them into the cling film, repeat until you have a surface area of dough large enough to lay the fish on

Different, But It Works!

Fold any excess dough at the sides over the fish

Encasing The Haddock

Make another sheet of dough to the size required to cover the top of the fish using the same method as before

Remove the new sheet from the cling film and place on top of the fish

Carefully seal the edges by smoothing over the joins with your fingers

Battered and About To Be Fried

Put to one side

Wash and dry potatoes

Slice into chips

Chips

Dry again with kitchen paper

Heat the oil in a large pan on high

Carefully add the chips and cook

Heat another pan of oil large enough to fit the fish on high

Add the fish carefully to the pan and cook for 7-8 minutes

Remove the chips and fish and drain on kitchen paper

There's a couple of things to note about this recipe, you may have noticed that I didn't give a cooking time on the chips, there's a reason for that. Our hob, well, our landlords hob is a bit rubbish, it seems to have a mind of its own where heat and cooking times are concerned when it comes to chips.

I always heat the pan on high for roughly the same time when cooking chips and always on the same ring. It's pretty much the same amount of potato each time too. However, our chip cooking times have been as quick as 17 minutes and as long as 35. Go figure?!

As I can't give you, or myself a definitive cooking time on the chips what I suggest is to use 10 minutes as the minimum and then judge it by eye. That way, they'll be cooked exactly as you want them, soft or a little crispy. Oh and I never peel potatoes for chips, I like the idea of getting the goodness out of the skin and I prefer the way they look with skin on. You of course don't have to follow my lead!

(If you have a deep fat fryer ignore me, I'm sure you'll have it covered. I'm seriously thinking about investing in one, it would make sense seeing as so much of what I blog about is gluten free comfort food. Must investigate.)

Another thing is that you can make the original sheet of dough large enough so that it will cover the whole fillet in one go, I chose not to do this as sealing it would have required crimping or tucking and I wanted the batter to be seamless, that's why I used two pieces of dough rather than just one.

The haddock came out lovely and moist and the batter was crisp with a little bit of softness on the inside. It may not be traditional but this is gluten free fish and chips that I will be having time and time again, it rocked!